'Nightmare': Longtime Trump adviser warns Fuentes meeting is 'another reason' people want 'DeSantis to run'

A longtime adviser to former Donald Trump warned his pre-Thanksgiving Mar-a-Lago dinner with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and white supremacist Nick Fuentes will be “another reason why” people look at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis “to run against” the former president in 2024, NBC News reports.

Trump on Friday denied knowing who Fuentes is, claiming Ye “called me to have dinner” and “unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, who I knew nothing about.” Three sources who spoke with NBC News corroborated Trump’s assertion “that he didn’t know Fuentes,” but pointed out “one glaring inaccuracy in Trump’s statement,” NBC News’ Marc Caputo reports.

Per Caputo:

“All three sources familiar with the dinner told NBC News there was one glaring inaccuracy in Trump’s statement: Trump knew one of the three ‘friends’ brought by the rapper, Karen Giorno. She was the Trump campaign's Florida director in 2016 and the former president knows her by name and sight, the sources said. In addition to Giorno and Fuentes, Ye also brought along another man who was an associate, according to the sources.”

For one of Trump’s advisers, who asked to remain anonymous, “this is a f-cking nightmare,” Caputo reports. "If people are looking at [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis to run against Trump, here's another reason why.”

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Caputo continues:

“The source familiar with the dinner conversation said the dinner grew heated after Ye — who announced another run for president in 2024 on Thursday — asked Trump to be his running mate. Trump then began insulting Ye’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, according to the source and a video that Ye posted to Twitter on Thanksgiving Day recounting the dinner.”

One source said Trump told Ye, “You’re not going to win. You can’t beat me."

Fuentes is advising Ye on his presidential run, NBC News reports. Far-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos will manage his campaign.

According to the Twitter video Ye posted, “Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes.”

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“Nick Fuentes, unlike so many of the lawyers, and so many of the people that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he’s actually a loyalist,” Ye said in the “Mar-a-Lago debrief” video.

“Nick, you work for the guy, and just because you work for him, you’re going to tell him he can beat me?” Trump asked Fuentes, according to an NBC News source. “You just got finished telling me I was the best president ever.”

Read the full report at NBC News.

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